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Tuesday, 13 November 2012

I’ve been looking for inspiration and examples of existing
fish & chip shops, restaurants or sea side cafes. I have previously posted
about ‘Kerbisher & Malt’ this is just another blog post to share some of
the design ideas I like. It has given me an idea of what I am looking for and
what I want in a site so hopefully that will help.

West Beach Café. Asif Khan. – Indoor/Outdoor.

I like the way the front of the building can open up on a
warm sunny day connecting the interior with the sea. The guests will be able to
smell the seaside, enjoy the sea air and the views.

East Beach Café. Thomas Heatherwick. – Seaside inspiration.

The exterior of this building just looks like a beach and I
love that this is where the inspiration has come from. The shape and colour has
a real impact on the landscape. To me it looks like a rock on the beach or the
marks on the sad just where the waves hit the shore – it makes me think
seaside. The interior looks cooling and bright, it reminds me of the inside of
a cave or the inside of a shell.

The Smokehouse. Pringle Richards Sharratt. – Re working a warehouse.

The smokehouse has brought together three different areas; a
takeaway, a café, and a guest house. I like that the different areas have been
combined to work as one and link together with the same theme. I really enjoy
the industrial look of the building and the floor to ceiling windows.

A few weeks ago I had my interim presentation where I
discussed my research, findings and ideas about my project up to that date. We
were to present this to our year group and the tutors of our department so they
could then critique us and offer advice.

I put a lot of thought into how I would visually display my
work. I wanted to try something different as I have now become used to creating
presentation sheets on my computer and printing them off. This time I decided
to use the wall beside my desk in the studio to create a physical mind map. In
the centre I placed an image of the celebratory gold fish & chips with the
issues I was going to discuss stemming from this. I cut out newspaper letters
on the laser cutter for the sub headings and displayed images, drawings and other
work around this. I wanted it to look playful and make the viewer want to look closely
and know more about the subject.

Over all it went well. I was really pleased with the
feedback and peoples reaction to my project.

Celebration is an area I think fish & chips is strongly
connected to and should definitely be part of my final design. I want it to be
FUN! As I think it is after all, all about it; fun, trips to the seaside,
nostalgia and treat days. It makes us stand out it’s one of the things that
makes our country British we should celebrate this. Winston Churchill referred
to them as, “the great companions” and apparently they helped us win World War
1.

Street food is a popular craze at the moment so let’s
celebrate fish & chips by having a great British street party. Let’s bring
back the fun and celebration aspect of it and show people it’s not dull and
boring like they have come to believe.

All the issues I have mentioned in previous blog posts
including this one all link back to fish & chips and can be solved. Fish
& Chips is at the centre of it all, it’s what can connect the information
about these issues to the general public to make them aware and bring about
change. The chip shop can be the central hub the HQ. Fish & Chips can save
the planet! Yep.

I’d really like to hear people’s opinions about fish &
chips and my topic so if you’re reading this and have something to say please
leave a comment I’d love to hear from you!

65% of adults in Scotland are overweight and heart disease
is the countries biggest killer. This makes people more conscious about what
they’re eating – as they should be- but fast food shops like the local chippy
have been blamed. Fish &Chips has a lot of stigma attached to it, it’s seen
as unhealthy even although it is one of the healthier take away options and the
battered mars bar has become a bit of a joke.

We need to change the environment that we live in to make
healthier choices easier and more accessible to everyone. Surely the fish &
chip shop can adapt and help this situation. People are looking for fast food;
we can give them this and even offer healthy options like baked fish whilst
still keeping the traditional meals for people who want to treat themselves now
and again.

What else can be done? I recently came across a great
example of fish & chip shops encouraging a healthier lifestyle. Last month
in Bristol a bike race was held called; ‘Fixed & Chips’. Cyclists had to
visit each chip shop on the map before crossing the finish line they got extra
points if they stopped and bought a sausage supper on the way. The overall winner’s
prize would be a bike. I thought this was a fun way to incorporate being healthy
with the fish & chip business, it shows that you can live a healthier life
and have the best of both – do your exercise and treat yourself once in awhile.
Competitions like this could be held every couple of months and get the
community involved.

I also found some work by Andreas Neophytou, creative
director at ‘Spring Creative’ in London. He created an identity design for ‘Jones’Fish & Chips’ which was run by his parents. He designed different logos for
the business and focused on the health issues that surround fish and chips for
some poster designs. I really love the way he portrays the information in a
unique way showing the customer the fat content and calories of fish &
chips compared to other fast foods. Of course fish & chips is the lowest
which probably comes to a surprise to most people. “Know exactly what you’re
eating!” “Fish…Chips…Batter” is the slogan he used which is really relevant
especially now as this is something that is becoming a growing concern for most
people. I really like this project
especially because it is so similar to my situation and what I am trying to
achieve but he has tackled the subject from a Graphic designer’s perspective. I
hope to achieve something equally as brilliant by using Interior design.

‘Fish & Chip Babies’ was something I had never heard
about before starting this project. ‘Fish & Chip Babies’ is the name give
to babies born in Malawi in Africa. They are born into extreme poverty and some
are already infected by the HIV virus. As the hospitals don’t have any clothes or
blankets to cover them with they wrap them in newspaper to keep them warm
therefore giving them the nickname ‘Fish & Chip Babies’. People her in the U.K. have been knitting
brightly coloured jumpers and hats to send over to Africa to help the cause.

I couldn’t find any official website for this cause just a
few church blogs with information and knitting patterns. Maybe the fish &
chip shop I propose to design could be some kind of ambassador raising
awareness for ‘Fish & Chip Babies’ connecting and informing people in the
U.K. The chip shop could have a wool share or drop off area and knitting
patterns could be used to wrap up a fish supper for customers to take home.
Jumpers can be handed in and sent off from the chip shop. People could even
have the chance to work with the business to go out to Africa and offer some
kind of aid. The chip shop would act as the hub for the help campaign….

After having a chat with this fish supplier I decided to talk
to some of the customers at the fish & chip shop. Customers are after all
at the heart of every business so I felt this was important.

I decided to keep the questions short and sweet and ask them
while they were waiting for their order. I wanted to find out what their
favourite fish was to see if it matched Hugh’s opinion that Brits only like
haddock or cod. I also wanted to know what they thought of fish & chips and
the fish & chip shop experience, any word that came to mind. I brought with
me a black card cut out of a haddock for them to write their answers on and
cooked some battered plaice for them to sample. I thought some free food would
be a nice thank you for them completing the questions and it would also let me
judge some of their responses to a new type of fish.

I found that the majority of the customers I asked preferred
haddock, next in line were cod and salmon, only a couple chose different types
of fish such as halibut or mackerel. Getting people to try a piece of plaice
proved difficult I’m not sure this was because they thought they wouldn’t like
it or if they felt to uncomfortable to take a free sample.

I have also drawn up four personas of my regular Wednesday
night customers. They all have their rituals and all get the exact same order
every week.

This make me think that it may prove difficult to get people to
change their habits and try a new type of fish. So maybe it’s not these
customers I should target maybe it will be the more adventurous younger
generation who are a bit bored of their local chippy, these may be the
customers that will want a shark supper?

Monday, 12 November 2012

A few weeks ago now I went to Arbroath to speak to the fish
merchant who supplies the fish to my fish & chip shop. I wanted to ask him
a few questions about sustainability within fishing and how he feels about
fishing quotas. I had a few questions prepared to get the ball rolling but was
hoping to have more of a conversation with him and find out some information
that would be of relevance that I hadn’t thought of. Luckily it turned out that
way!

I started by asking him about the t.v. programme ‘Hugh’s
Fish Fight’ and what his opinions were on sustainability. Although he agreed
with fishing quotas and the monitoring system in place as it has put a stop to
selling ‘Black Fish’, he had a different opinion on what would help sustain the
haddock stocks. In his opinion sustainability can be helped if we stopped
catching fish when they are spawning. When fish are spawning they become thin
and tasteless, the fish should not be caught at this time as they are weak,
they need to become strong again before they are caught. Easter is when the haddock
that he buys will be spawning therefore Easter is when our shop should stop
selling haddock if it were to follow the rule of not catching fish when
spawning to help sustainability. This would not go down well with customers as
traditionally Easter is a busy time for the fish & chip shop. I wondered if
perhaps the chip shop and his fish business could work together and sell a
different type of fish to help the cause however he didn’t agree. 95% of the
fish he sells is haddock, he said it is very difficult to get people in this
area to buy another type of fish. I asked if he could suggest another type of
fish we could try to sell instead but he didn’t think this was a good idea. It
seems people are set in their ways and it will be a difficult task to change
this but I think eventually it could be done. People today are more open to
trying new foods, maybe if they knew about the variety of fish and knew what it
tasted like they would not be as scared to buy it. Most kids don’t like fish
but they will eat it from a fish & chip shop as it’s dressed up
differently, maybe adults would be the same if you offered them some halibut
served up in a different way they might bite…

In my opinion I feel the key to helping the sustainability
issue is to educate and encourage people into buying a variety of fish not just
the one type. This meeting was very helpful as it has backed up a few of the
areas I have been researching already.

I have been looking into issues that are connected with fish
& chips. The next few blog posts will be about some of the research I have
been doing into these areas to see how they might affect my project, design and
give me inspiration.

It was suggested that I watch ‘Hugh’s Fish Fight’ to give me
some inspiration for my project. I hadn’t watched this series before but I had
heard about it. Before watching I didn’t realise how crazy the discarding
problem that fisherman face is.

In the U.K. haddock and cod is rare due to overfishing, we
eat more than our stocks are able to produce therefore it now needs to be
safeguarded. Fishing quotas have been given to fishermen so they are not allowed
to land over a certain amount of fish. If they catch more than their quota
while at sea they have to throw it back dead! It seems strange to me as this isn’t
helping sustainability because if the fish are already dead it’s just getting
wasted, as Hugh would say it’s “madness!”

Hugh mentioned that the “Chippy is a real problem at the
heart of British fish culture.” Basically the fish & chip shop is the main
reason people only eat these two types of fish, haddock and cod. The chip shop
made it available, appealing and easily accessible to the customer so it became
something they were used to and comfortable with. Maybe if they offered other
types of fish people would get used to it too and not be scared of trying
something new, but is it too late? Well we need to create this market for under
utilised species to save haddock and cod. Since the chip shop seems to be at
the heart of the problem maybe this is where we should start. Surely if it was
made available to them we could make the public love another type of fish as
much as they love cod and haddock. I think people are just scared of the
unknown.

In Hugh’s programme he got the chippys selling mackerel baps
in an attempt to make it the new cod and chips. I think if we keep trying it
could happen!

About Me

I’m currently studying Interior and Environmental Design at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design which is part of the University of Dundee.
A designer with a love of branding I aim to create colourful, exciting spaces to make people smile. After university I aspire to work for a design company that specialises in making ordinary interior spaces extra-ordinary!